BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--AUTHOR KRIS BOCK ON HER NEW HUMOROUS MYSTERY SERIES

We’re happy to have a return visit from author Kris Bock who writes mystery, suspense, and romance, many with outdoor adventures and Southwestern landscapes. Today Kris discusses the inspiration behind her new humorous Accidental Detective Series. Learn more about Kris and her books at her Website and Blog where you can also find links to her on other social media sites. Sign up for her newsletter to get a ten-page mystery short story set in the world of the Accidental Detective, information on the series, and three fun short stories originally written for children.

In the Accidental Detective Series, a witty journalist solves mysteries in Arizona and tackles the challenges of turning fifty. Something Shady at Sunshine Haven, the first book in the series, debuts April 7^th.

 

When patients are dying at an Alzheimer's unit, a former war correspondent must use her journalism skills to uncover the killer and save her mother. Kate has followed the most dangerous news stories around the world, but can she survive going home? 

 

What inspired the series?

For my Accidental Detective mysteries, I started with a character who is trying to reinvent her life as she turns fifty. She spent thirty years as a war correspondent, so she’s pretty fearless, but that doesn’t always help her with the challenges of aging. She’s dealing with elderly parents who have health problems, a resentful sister, her own lack of retirement planning, and a body that doesn’t recover as quickly as it used to. These challenges provide humor as she narrates her attempts to solve local mysteries and build a new life.

 

Why did you set the series in the Southwest?

I've been in New Mexico for more than twenty years, three times longer than I've lived anywhere else, so this is home. I live with my husband and our two ferrets in a small town, where I enjoy walking, hiking and archery.

 

I love New Mexico, but I wanted to set the mystery series in a big city. In Arizona, I could create a fictional city within the greater Phoenix metropolitan area. That allows me to use this fictional city government for political issues, and make the mayor an old friend of Kate’s, without stepping on any real toes.

 

Arizona also provides tons of mystery opportunities. The large senior population attracts scams and abuse. You have the potential for arguments over inheritance (or even murders to get that inheritance sooner). The border with Mexico creates anxiety over immigration and various kinds of trafficking. Plus, you have all the usual potential crimes in any large population. I’ll be able to keep Kate busy for years.

 

How did your writing journey get you here?

Twenty years ago, I started writing for children, using the name Chris Eboch. I have eight middle grade novels (for ages 9 to 12) published under that name and I’ve been a ghostwriter for some popular children’s mystery series. I also write a lot of educational nonfiction and fiction. 

 

Around 2008, I was starting to feel restless and wanted a change. I had mostly been reading adult romantic suspense novels, so I started writing those under the name Kris Bock. Desert Gold follows the hunt for a long-lost treasure in the New Mexico desert. Whispers in the Dark features archaeology and intrigue among ancient Southwest ruins. What We Found was inspired by finding the body of a murder victim while hiking in the woods. (Read about the whole experience of finding a dead body here.)

 

More recently, I started a sweet romance series set in and around a cat café. These cafés are a relatively recent trend, but you can now find several hundred all around the world. Typically, they partner with a shelter, so all the cats you can visit are available for adoption. In each of my Furrever Friends Sweet Romance series books, a couple falls in love and in addition one or more cats find their permanent homes.

 

So I have over 100 published books now, but that includes fiction and nonfiction, for children and adults. The variety keeps me interested! I have four Accidental Detective novels written and scheduled for publication, and in the meantime, I'm writing a romance series about a ranch family that wins the lottery. It's a lot of fun.

 

Something Shady at Sunshine Haven

The Accidental Detective, Book 1

 

She’s pursued the most dangerous news stories around the world. But can she survive going home?

 

Injured in a bombing, war correspondent Kate Tessler returns to her hometown in Arizona to recover. For the first time in her life, she’s starting to feel her age of nearly fifty despite living like a teenager again: staying in her childhood bedroom with only a cat for company, trying to understand why her sister resents her so much, and running into people who still refer to her as Kitty. The hardest part? Seeing her once-sharp and witty mother stuck in an Alzheimer’s unit.

 

When an old friend asks her to investigate suspicious deaths at the nursing home, Kate limps into action. Is a self-appointed “Angel of Mercy” killing patients to end their suffering? Are family members hastening their inheritance? Is an employee extorting money and removing the witnesses? Kate uses her journalism skills to track clues, but the puzzle pieces simply won’t fit.

 

If Kate can’t uncover the truth quickly, her mother could be next on the killer’s list.

 

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DR. MILLICENT EIDSON BRINGS THE SOUTHWEST ENVIRONMENT AND CULTURE, ALONG WITH ENCHANTMENT AND MYSTERY, TO HER DEBUT NOVEL

Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico

Dr. Millicent Eidson is a public health instructor previously with state health departments and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Learn more about Millie and her microbial mystery stories of zoonoses (diseases from animals) at her website.  

“Monuments” is an award-winning ten-minute play set in Santa Fe, New Mexico during the hot summer protests of 2020. The iconic city is also home base for new medical detective Dr. Maya Maguire in the MayaVerse, an alphabetical mystery series. A twenty-five-year-old veterinarian hired by the CDC for a prestigious two-year public health training program, Maya is over her head as she investigates disease outbreaks while attempting a personal life for the first time.

 

In the debut novel, Bacillus anthracis bacteria infect Texas livestock but are new to Arizona with the collapse of a teenage Hopi sheepherder. Maya’s fieldwork takes her to spectacular remote locations of Keams Canyon and wildlife refuges along the Mexican border. More anthrax infections and deaths emerge from a Christmas-themed petting zoo, a Native American Pow Wow, and the largest livestock show in Arizona. 

 

Maya’s chapters interchange with the mysterious diary of a young boy who fancies a veterinary career while he becomes indoctrinated into hatred of anyone different. As timelines collide, passions bloom in the ancient ruins of Bandelier National Monument and Chaco Canyon. Warm friendships are intensified in Santa Fe’s plaza and Canyon Road with the farolitos and Las Posadas of Christmas. Maya rejoices in her work placement immersed in the Southwestern landscapes and traditions of her Arizona childhood.

 

Physical challenges from horseback riding and rough jeep trails exacerbate panic and pain from metal pins inserted after a childhood accident. Maya is supported in her journey as a “fish out of water” Chinese American in the Southwest by her loving but intrusive adoptive family. She’s buoyed by furry cuddles with her grandma’s Persian cat and her veterinary colleague’s Labrador retriever. Her mental health challenges are counteracted by Broadway musicals, especially Hamilton. How fortunate that the intriguing physician working for the Indian Health Service resembles Lin-Manuel Miranda, the musical’s creator and star.

 

Anthracis: A Microbial Mystery launches Maya’s worldwide travels as a statistics nerd maturing into medical detective leadership with life-changing personal connections. Along with suspense and medical thriller aspects, each novel provides its readers a rewarding HFN—happy for now—conclusion with a hint of foreshadowing to the next disease threat.

 

As the veterinarian author of the MayaVerse, I share with readers the excitement and fascinating science of invisible microbes, a specialty during my epidemiology career. Expanding the medical detective world to veterinary public health provides enriching new fictional challenges, characters, and settings. One Health is the concept that humans, animals, and the environment are intricately tied together, and changes like weirding weather impact us all.

 

Like my character, I lived most of my life in the Southwest. My (and Maya’s) favorite Northern New Mexico cuisine includes blue corn green chile chicken enchiladas with sour cream. Regular corn wrappings will not do. They must be blue corn, grown that color and not dyed. The blue corn provides a rich nutty flavor. Ideally the chiles should be from Hatch, New Mexico, where fall roasting gives off fumes so strong your eyes will burn. Many consider green chiles to be the most flavorful, although you can also order “Christmas” at any time of the year, which is a mix of red and green chiles. To make your own blue corn enchiladas with red chile sauce, see https://www.sfshed.com/pages/video-recipes

 

The MayaVerse is an innovative mashup of Tess Gerritsen and Tony Hillerman with cozy mystery elements interrupted by bouts of terror. Please join Maya and me on her journey, including the free MayaVerse prequels and side stories available on my website. Those joining the Reader list will receive “Monuments” as a free ebook.

 

Anthracis: A Microbial Mystery

MayaVerse, Book 1

 

The spectacular southwestern desert is alive with Bacillus anthracis spores, and the summer is the hottest on record. As a new veterinary epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Maya Maguire confronts the largest, most complex anthrax outbreak in U.S. history.

 

Infections in persons of color and immigration activists resonate with Maya’s search, as a Chinese American adoptee, for a place in her American home. Younger than her fellow trainees and battling panic disorder from a horrific childhood accident, she struggles to solve an epidemic mystery in a physician-dominated public health world. From her home base in New Mexico, CDC sends her to join a federal team in Arizona, including provocative physician Dr. Manolo Miranda and tightlipped veterinarian Dr. Dave Schwartz.

 

The epidemic is linked to climate change—that’s the party line. But Homeland Security agents and the FBI are suspicious. Dave’s an anthrax expert and spores match his home Texas Triangle of Death.

 

An invisible enemy, team secrets, and romantic missteps may derail Maya’s confidence. If she can’t find the source, thousands could perish from anthrax-laced heroin and tainted milk. Anthracis takes us to the front lines with scientists betting their lives and relationships on the investigation outcome.

 

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